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Enemies of Nigeria

By Tony Afejuku
23 October 2020   |   7:14 am
“Nigeria is presently on FIRE as I am writing to you. Haters of Nigeria, fascists, who miscall themselves Democrats, and Democratic leaders and lawmakers are putting us in burning holes.”

“Nigeria is presently on FIRE as I am writing to you. Haters of Nigeria, fascists, who miscall themselves Democrats, and Democratic leaders and lawmakers are putting us in burning holes.” This was the message I sent to India in the night of Tuesday, 21, of October, 2020. The recipient is an Indian activist; I must add a fellow international activist and public intellectual with whom I have been collaborating on matters bordering on scholarship and the failure of governance especially in our respective regions of the world. His terse reply: “India too is in a mess and we have been like this from 1947.”

I thought deeply and hard about his brief reply which I tried to situate within the context of current happenings in our dear country that will ever remain dear to all true patriots, all genuine patriots who want real change that is real change in every facet of our lives. I know a little about India. I know a little about the condition of the people of India that is universally acknowledged as the largest ‘democracy’ in the world. Yes, their condition is tough. Yes, the people are poor despite their positive advancement in science and technology, medicine and education.

Yes, their political leaders are corrupt despite every positive spiritual thought and the moral example of Mohandas Karamch and Gandhi, a founding father and spiritual leader of the country, who was brutally murdered decades ago. I can go on and on… But what we cannot dispute is that the ‘democratic’ leaders of India are far more than hundred per cent better than ours at least as at today.

They are not in any way as chronically corrupt and as wicked as ours. Yet my friend is unhappy, very unhappy, at the condition, at the general condition, of his people.

Narendra Modi is the head of the BJP-led NDA government which he has headed since 26 May 2014 as “India’s first non-Congress single party majority government.” By the way, BJP means Bharatiya Janata Party which in English translation means “Indian People’s Party,” a pro-Hindu political party that enjoys wide support among “members of the higher castes” but it still makes room for visibly visible appointments for members of lower castes in that entrenched caste system ‘democracy.’ NDA stands for National Democratic Alliance which is a “political alliance of Indian centre-right and right wing parties,” a coalition the BJP has led since 1998 under Modi’s leadership. Clearly, India under Modi’s prime minister-ship has poor human rights record, but we cannot in all honesty call him and his cronies and minions enemies of India on account at least
of the prime minister’s conscious effort to lead his nuclear power country out of economic and food poverty.

Will my Indian friend agree with me? We shall trash this out in our next debate in the coming days.

Our taciturn president and his party and cronies and minions are enemies of Nigeria unlike Modi and his Indian People’s Party. Indeed, from what President Taciturn Buhari has demonstrated since 2015, what true label can we give to him and his party and his central government as well as the governments of the states his party controls? The End SARS protesters have enabled us in the way we never really envisaged that President Taciturn and his ruling party and all their hangers-on are enemies of Nigeria. In fact, things came to a head four days ago with the murder of the End
SARS’ protesters at Lekki in our com￾mercial capital called Lagos, our erstwhile political or administrative capital. And we cannot in obedience to our true state of consciousness accept Buhari’s and his party’s actions
as those of lovers of our country. What we can bear witness to is that Buhari and his party and his cronies and minions are anti-Nigeria and anti-Nigerians. Their All-Progressives Congress is now to be renamed Anti People’s Congress of Nigeria (APCN) or All Anti-People Congress (AAPC). Either of this is and must be the name we shall know them by henceforth.

They are anti-Nigeria and anti-Nigerians, I repeat. They are haters of Nigeria. They are haters of our country. They are enemies of Nigeria. They are enemies of our goodness and greatness.

I am not surprised though. What we have just seen this week in Abuja and Lekki in particular has given the week this October the colour and appearance of a peculiar Nigeria tragedy that is not devoid of a classical tragedy in the real sense of the term.

The falcon can no longer hear the falconer, an old chum and worthy writer who writes regularly here reminded me a week ago. I concurred.

Now I must say thus: all enemies of Nigeria cannot escape the hurrying deluge. Let them continue to send their fighters and thugs and army of official soldiers and of un-official hoodlums and hooligans to combat the Resistance of the Harmless End SARS Protesters, they will never triumph over the patriotic lovers of our country marching in the streets without guns and bombs and grenades, but each with the flag of our dear country. The protesters’ feeling of freedom and the lightness of their triumphant movements in the streets will give them and Nigeria victory. Of course the “apocalypse: that is to say a spontaneous organization of revolutionary forces” of order will sooner or later prove the strength and power of freedom. Let the enemies of Nigeria run for cover at the appointed time in and out of this country, they will taste the poison of their own created wickedness and hatred against the people – at the appointed time. Let them hide as they will, at the appointed time they will be flushed out or they will commit suicide in their hiding places. The rest is silence. Believe or do not believe me. The rest is silence… I am not building castles in Spain. Phew!

Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059

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